


Hand of God (needless thing)

by zinjadu



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-08 17:09:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written a while ago, mid series somewhere.  Scar's a crazy pants.  Rehosting here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hand of God (needless thing)

He has no illusions.

He knows what he is.

A madman. A killer. A monster. An abomination, in the eyes of men and God. Oh, yes. God. Always God.

He stalks through the city of grey stone and rain, and would feel out of place if there was anywhere he could have belonged to in the first place.

Alchemists are his targets, and he banishes all other thoughts from his mind. His footfalls are light, for a man of his size they should be heavy. He is trained, so very well trained. Once upon a time, when he was another man in another place, his commander had remarked at how well he took to training. But that man is dead now, only the training remains.

The first alchemist sees him coming, but is not afraid. More the fool. His open palm smacks the blue-clad man’s forehead like a benediction, but it does not bring forgiveness this palm, it brings death with red lightning. The alchemists’ brains liquefy, oozing out the ears and eyes and nose, blood accompanying it and out the mouth as well. A whole head destroyed from the inside out. There is no disgust in the scared man’s face, only the grim, oh so grim, satisfaction of a job well done.

He moves on. There are more killers to kill.

Blood and grey matter paint his hand, but the rain washes it off. Marvelous to watch, as the red swirls away down the gutter, joining the waste of a wasteful and indolent city. It is all waste in the end, and water does not truly wash anything away, he thinks.

The hand, the arm—a part of his brother. Some days he wonders if he should, or could, hate the man who was once a brother, who had cursed him to this fate. But he knows, knows in his bones and what is left of his soul that this is God’s will. God singled him out, drove him to the edges of the desert, to the edges of his mind, and created him anew. A weapon of the divine, turning the sinner’s own sin against them.

No man could do what he must, so God created a demon. Even demons have a purpose for being. There will be no divine reward, his only hope is God’s forgiveness for the justice done in His name, and maybe hell will not await him when he dies.

Or maybe this is his hell now. His penance.

His fist clenches, red electricity sparking down the arm that is not his, and he abandons these thoughts. They serve no purpose. He has returned to the poor section of town, full of the diseased and disparate, and the time being he will rest, and then watch the army some more, find the next in the long list of those who must die by God’s hand.

\------

What he finds one night, rainy like the rest of the nights he has been in this city, is not what he expected to find. Another abomination, like himself, only not. It is two souls in one body, twisted and in pain. Innocent souls, or they were once, with no thought of hurting another in their entire lives. Short lives, he is sure.

It looks up at him, eyes vacant and yet they see well enough to track his movements. It is so very confused and afraid.

He strokes its fur with his clean hand, the one with no markings, the own that is his own. Soft fur made tacky by the rain. And for the first time in a long time he feels something other than anger and hate. Pity. He pities this beast and the place it has found itself in. He doubts it asked to become like this, most likely an alchemist did this. His brother’s, God’s, hand clenches reflexively at the thought.

With a few muttered words, expressions of an emotion he thought had died with the man he used to be, he sends the creature into oblivion. It is free of its pain, and now its only physical remnants are a bloody pattern on the alley wall. The souls that were in the body have gone, perhaps to God. He hopes to God.

And he grimaces, another feeling he thought long dead sprung to the surface, just another thing that will come between him and his mission. A needless thing.


End file.
